On a New Year's Eve
by EdinaC
Summary: When the boys embark on a New Year's tradition they find themselves flung back to the Second Dimension, home of a few more surprises than a platypus in a fedora and alternate counterparts.
1. The Tradition

**Chapter 1: The Tradition**

Ferb's boots crunched through the thick sheets of snow lining the slippery Christmas-time Danville sidewalk as he made his way, headfirst through a cool, though that was a euphemism, headwind, back from the almost snowed-in mall; specifically, from Blueprint Haven. For the umpteenth time during his walk, the icy gale blew a long strand of the tall teenager's naturally green hair, something about which Phineas was always curious, from its neat position behind his ear to the rather annoying one between his eyes.

Ferb formed his lips into an 'o' and huffed with all his might to get the strand back into line. It didn't budge. Ferb stopped, put down the small fortune of blueprint cartons he was carrying carefully in the snow and wiped the strand away with an elegantly gloved hand. He sighed and picked the blueprints up to continue walking on. During his last hair-cut, something that had been desperately required when Baljeet had knocked over a miniaturized Hair-Growth Ray and given himself and Phineas both beards and bushy hair, the former of which had been shaved off and the latter almost given the same, only being spared because Isabella had stopped them saying that "their haircutting abilities would make her vomit", one single strand of Ferb's hair had evaded cutting.

It was a constant source of giggles for his brother and his best-friend, and a constant source of annoyance for the reasonably tall sixteen-year-old Brit. He was tall for his age, at least above the average, and reasonably lightly built, something that aided immensely in his running, biking and martial-arts - the latter of which he practiced surreptitiously. His hair was shaggy and short, running in waves like a mad-scientist's cut short, and a vibrant shade of green - something he claimed natural, a fact no one had yet been able to disprove.

He wore a long-sleeved gray thermal-tee covered with a shorter-shirt of dull purple and a black and green winter-overcoat draped over his shoulders, shrouding them both. Under the overcoat, Ferb sported a pair of puffy snow-proof pants and wore a pair of rugged rubbery snow-boots. His general appearance was quite… poofy. And, most important, across his back were slung industrially-reinforced blueprint tubes, the Phineas and Ferb variety.

Ferb rounded the corner of Madison Road onto Maple Drive and was met with a another gust of wind that promptly wheedled the hair out from behind his ear. Ferb ignored it determinedly and stared at the pearly-white sidewalk in an effort to make it go away, but was soon distracted as his ears were greeted by the sound of voices, one rather louder and peppier than the others, and his nose by the smell of cinnamon. Instantly his nostrils flared and he increased his pace, not even glancing at the Christmas decorations of his neighbors, until he burst through the gate, his red-headed and pointy step-brother being the first thing he saw.

At five-foot eleven, Phineas Flynn was a whole two inches shorter than his slightly-older step-brother. His crimson-red hair was longer and messier than Ferb's, hanging down almost to his ear lobes in places, though it tended to stick up, and his face more angular, severely contrasting with Ferb's somewhat blocky-nose. His eye's were a piercing mix of hazel and blue and were sometimes mistaken for a dull shade of purple, though his eyes were anything but dull. On a regular day there was a spark dancing in them that suggested trouble but made you unable to resist coming along for the ride.

He wore a rich blue beanie over his head and a similarly colored blue vest over his orange woolen sweater. Like Ferb, he had on a pair of grey snow pants and black boots. He was slimmer by comparison to Ferb in the shoulders and was quite evenly distributed, his sides looking quite straight. He was smaller than Ferb, both in stature and size, but had more muscle, though only slightly. He and his step-brother rarely competed in anything.

"C'mon guys, it'll be… Ferb! You're back with the blueprints?" Phineas spun around from where he had been talking to Isabella, Baljeet and Buford. They all too turned around to look at their silent friend and greeted him warmly.

Ferb nodded and moved closer to Phineas to show him each of the designs in turn. Phineas nodded excitedly and turned his face back to Ferb, "And guess what! Mom made cookies… cinnamon if I know my brother well…"

Ferb rubbed his stomach and it growled in return, getting him a warm chuckle from Phineas. "Thought so".

"So what are we doin' here?" Buford asked, cracking his knuckles to emphasize his already apparent annoyance, quite threatening when put in combination with his large build and medium stature.

"Yeah, Phineas, what _are_ we doing here?" Isabella chimed in, coming to stand beside him as she did so. She, like Phineas, was also shorter than Ferb and skinnier than both, but she, unlike them, had a neat, curvy frame that was, in the summer, emphasized by her extensive use of pink sundresses and skirts. Her hair was long and hung down to the point where it was just tickling her waist. Her eyes were big, just as her mother's, and round with long unemphasized lashes. She had very fair skin, something she got from her father, and a very small, pointy nose.

Phineas grinned and winked at his step-brother before turning back to the small group and smiling, specifically to Isabella, whom he was closest to, making her blush and take a step back which Phineas didn't notice at all. "We have gathered you here" he gestured widely with his arms at the large, frosted backyard with its single bare tree, "to give unto you a secret Flynn-Fletcher holiday tradition."

"How secret is secret?" The pale bully crossed his arms, his face an expression of disbelieving curiosity that was highlighted evermore by his black, skull emblazoned beanie.

Phineas' expression changed to one of a teacher explaining a piece of interesting trivia. "Well… only Ferb and I know about it."

"How is it a Flynn-Fletcher tradition then?"

"We're getting off topic," Phineas said, dismissing Buford's question readily. "Anyway, around the holidays, Ferb and I like to right any wrongs we may have committed during the year and make amends in preparation for the new year."

"You commit wrongs?" Isabella asked, her expression vacant.

Baljeet rolled his eyes, "Everyone commits wrongs… duh," piping up for the first time since Ferb had shown up, his Indian accent one of superiority though his body clearly didn't show it.

"I'm losing interest," Buford grunted.

"Guys, guys" Phineas tried to silence them. Ferb nudged him and nodded and Phineas fell silent.

He cleared his throat and everyone went quiet. "It basically means we make you amazing presents to fix things" he said politely, using his British accent to its fullest.

There was a chorus of "Ohhhh" from their friends and Buford nodded. "Ok, I'm in." He refolded his arms.

"Me too"

"Oh, I would love to"

"Great!" Phineas exclaimed, "then let's get started!" He promptly turned and walked toward the house, Ferb sticking by his side the whole way, and gestured for the group to follow him. Once they were inside the warm house, Phineas took his winter clothes off. "Ok, now, Ferb and I have already done some of ours… I think Mom liked the new pie baking oven we made…"

"What did you do to your Mom?"

"We're her children, I'm sure we did _something_ wrong" Phineas said happily, earning him a few half-exasperated half-disbelieving stares from Buford and Isabella. Phineas didn't seem to see and continued, "Candace is constantly complaining that we make too much noise during our projects so we made her some sound filtering headphones that allow you to hear only what you want to and can plug into your phone to make phone calls. And since she's in college, we not only outfitted it with a video calling capability, but also the ability to project anyone's image into your room, so when you video call, it can feel like they're really there," he stated proudly.

"Cool" Baljeet and Isabella chimed in unison.

Phineas smiled happily, "Okay, Ferb and I haven't done anything for you guys _yet_, but we are going to. Now, to make it fair we pulled your names out of a hat to decide who get's their gift first."

"We'd also like to think you will do the same for your families," Ferb added while Phineas gave him a satisfied nod.

"That's right. Okay, according to the hat" Ferb pulled out a fedora from under his coat that appeared to be filled with paper, "…Buford is first."

Buford squealed and looked around before becoming silent again. Phineas and everyone else stared at him for a sec and then continued, "Buford, remember that football game we made you late to during the Anti-gravity Freezer experiment?"

"Of course I do. You cost me two tickets to the football game of the season!"

"Then I think you'll be pleased with your gift. We got you a pocket teleporter so you'll never be late again - don't use it too much or your DNA will get scrambled, even worse you might just end up being an extremely magnetic puddle of gloop - and we also got you two tickets to the same football game."

"What good does that do me? It was played over half a year ago!"

"Not so fast Buford, we have a completely realistic 3D recording of the entire game that feels completely real. Better yet, as soon as you use it you forget the score and who won, so you get the full enjoyment of the game. Ferb and I tested it to make sure."

Buford smiled childishly, "Gimme gimme gimme!" he cried as Ferb handed over what looked like a small pen and a smooth piece of black glass.

"Next is Baljeet. Now, Baljeet, you'll have to tell us what you want - you're a hard man to buy for."

"Well… you already got me the Quantum Calculator for my birthday and the Complete Computerized Encyclopedia of Knowledge for Christmas…" The Indian boy's face showed mild unconcern as he thought, a crease appearing on his forehead as he lifted his mittened hand to his already fuzzy chin.

"I got it! Baljeet, what's something you wanted to do but we accidentally left you out of?"

"Uh… Ferb's British graduation party?"

"Uh… no. Besides, that was only the Flynn-Fletchers. Not even Ferb's fellow graduates were allowed to come. No, I was thinking… how about Ferb and I build the time machine you designed and take you back to hang out with dinosaurs?"

Baljeet's eyes widened. "Hang out with dinosaurs?"

"Yeah. It'll be as fun as last time, provided we don't run into each other."

"You mean observe Jurassic ecological fauna and flora in their unmodernized natural ecosystem?"

"That's right."

"Awesome." Baljeet's voice grew high.

"Well Ferb, let's get to it!"

* * *

><p>"So… what's it supposed to be?" Buford asked.<p>

Phineas laughed heartily, "Buford! It's a _time machine_!"

"It doesn't look anything like the other one" Isabella observed, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh… what other one?" Buford asked.

"Oh, right… you weren't there."

Truthfully, it _didn't_ look anything like the first time machine they had used. The first was big and well-furnished with rounded majestic arches of polished bronze panelling and bolting that had a wonderfully steam-punk nature about it. It was large and almost spherical in shape, though it was squashed at the sides and a quarter was missing to reveal the inside, cushioned with soft red leather.

The Phineas and Ferb time machine, however, was from an entirely different era. It was about a yard and a half squared in size and stood to the height of most of the teens' hips. It was made of neat smoothly rounded arches that had an almost-translucent nature about them, sunlight sinking into them but not exactly going all the way through nor reflecting. Each was of a thin, spindly construction becoming attenuated where each met the other giving the machine the appearance of having a mesh-like construction. On the inside of the machine was a mass of thickly strung-together clumps of cables, each running to a different port on the machine. Around these were coiled sleek tubes that clung mist around themselves and on the side was a cleanly embedded control panel - touchscreen, of course.

"So how does it work?" Isabella asked.

Baljeet smiled and closed his eyes in a contended smile, though Isabella wasn't looking at him, "It is based off my original designs. Each of the high-quark density arches generates a powerful field of dark energy wh…"

"Okay, enough of the nerd babble," Buford exclaimed testily while pushing Baljeet aside to stand closer to the two brothers. "Are we going to see some dinosaurs or what?"

"Yeah, just as soon as we get the quantum spacetime stretch core warmed up." Phineas turned and flicked the single switch on the control panel and turned back to the others with an excited grin on his face. "Then all we have to do is input the four dimensional coordinates."

"Four dimensional?" Buford questioned.

"Yeah!" Phineas grin stretched wider. "Each coordinate pertains to each dimension. The first three detail where in space you want to go, this backyard, assuming there's no mountain or something here, though the machine should automatically account for that, and what time."

"You know, I think that I would rather study Pleistocene-era creatures."

"Okay Baljeet, it's your choice."

"What?" Buford burst out, a completely exasperated look on his otherwise pale complexion, "You would rather do that than run after dinosaurs?"

Baljeet rolled his eyes unconcernedly in an equally exasperated manner. "Buford, we would not be 'running after' dinosaurs. We would be going to _study_ them. And, in answer to your question, yes, I would. That is why I said 'I would rather study Pleistocene-era creatures'. Obviously." Baljeet rolled his eyes again.

"Whatever" Buford rolled his eyes this time.

"Okay, Ferb's programmed the coordinates in. Should we get going?" Phineas looked around at the group, excluding Ferb, who was standing ready with a remote. There were nods and Baljeet walked over to where Ferb was standing, while Isabella scooted over to stand right next to Phineas.

Phineas smiled and gave an 'after you' gesture to Ferb. Ferb nodded and pressed a button on the remote. "Now, the time machine will cast a field around us, and then we go."

Everyone nodded once more and Buford walked a few steps closer to the machine. "Okay, we should be going in… five… four… three…"

"Let's go see some dinosaurs!" Buford whooped, moving right up close to the machine and running his hand across the touchscreen.

"Buford! No!" the group cried as one as they leapt forward to stop him. But in mid-air, they froze in place. Phineas with an outstretched arm, grabbing towards Buford, who was ducking out of the way and away from the control panel, while Isabella held onto his arm and was dragged along with them.

For a split second their frozen bodies decorated the Flynn-Fletcher backyard; Mrs. Flynn-Fletcher in the kitchen, not even noticing. Before the sun could even shine on them a second longer, their bodies stretched and dissipated into tiny particles which flew around the time machine before disappearing in a flash. The machine emitted a low, monotone beep, flashed a green light and was silent.

* * *

><p>Approximately six years earlier, at the end of Maple Drive.<p>

There was a flash that stunned the neighborhood for a jiffy, temporarily outshining the sun, and then five figures started to appear. Immediately, after he was unfrozen, Phineas continued charging at the spot where Buford now lay on the ground until he realized his surroundings and the fact that the time machine was no longer there. He stopped, wide-eyed, and stared at Buford before he turned to Ferb who was already moving around and making adjustments with the remote.

"Ferb," Phineas rubbed his head and rubbed his eyes, letting go of Isabella's arm as he did so. "Ferb, where are we?"

"Maple Drive." But it wasn't Ferb who answered.

Phineas turned to Isabella, completely taken aback. "How did you know that?"

Isabella pointed simply at the street-corner sign that sat right next to them. "Oh… right." Phineas rubbed his head again and laughed a bit. "Okay, silly question. So, when are we?"

Ferb held the scanner up in the air for a second more, pointing at the clear blue sky, and then handed it to Phineas. "Huh, six years earlier. How serendipitous."

"I'd say that we haven't done too badly," Ferb put in while Phineas nodded, not really listening.

"Okay, okay." He continued studying the remote and adjusting it for himself. Ferb raised a green eye brow at his brother but didn't question it and instead walked to the corner of Madison and Maple. This was definitely weird; but then, wasn't everything they did weird? This was the _same_ corner he had walked down not… well, six years later. It just looked newer and not as covered in snow.

"What is the time?" Baljeet asked, speaking up for the first time since they had arrived and ignoring the still pavement-ridden Buford.

Ferb took his eyes of the sign and looked at his watch. Hopefully it had adjusted for the time change. After all, he _had_ built it himself. "Six thirty."

Baljeet shook his head in bewilderment. "Six thirty in the evening?" he asked rhetorically.

"No, Baljeet, the sun's in the _east_," Isabella pointed. "That means it's six thirty in the morning."

"Hey, guys," Phineas put in, "I think I know what day it is today."

"What day is it?" Isabella and Baljeet chorused.

"You won't believe this, but, coincidentally, it's the day we all went to the future." Phineas looked up from the remote to peer at the startled faces of Baljeet and Isabella.

"Weird." Buford sat up, apparently having listened to the whole conversation.

Baljeet turned angrily to him, seeing that he was conscious. "Buford!" he screamed, taking the bully by surprise. "Are not you a little too _old_ to be messing with time machines?"

Buford stared goggle-eyed at the Indian nerd, "Yeah, yeah I am".

* * *

><p><strong>AN - Okay guys, rage at me all you want and I probably deserve it, but hey, I'm lazy.  
><strong>

**Anyway, this is the first chapter of my newest story. Hopefully I should be quick in updating it... but that's what I always say, isn't it?  
><strong>

**Basically, if it was confusing, Buford tried to reset the machine to take them to see some dinosaurs but ended up transporting them six years back in time instead.  
><strong>

**Oh, and PS, a 'jiffy' is an actual scientific term that denotes a tenth of a second.**


	2. The Truth

**Chapter 2: The Truth**

Phineas turned his face away from the remote and reached out his arm to pull Buford up from the ground. Buford looked surprised at the action and took his hand. Phineas yanked and Buford rose to his feet and brushed himself off before looking curiously at Phineas. "You're not mad Dinner Bell?" he inquired with a sweaty face.

Phineas shook his head dismissively, "Nope, why would I be mad? Besides, the time machine still works; right, Ferb?" Phineas asked breezily, handing over the remote to Ferb at the same time.

Ferb took the remote and ignored the curious, sans Phineas, faces of the group as he tapped it, held it against his ear, felt all over it, shook it and finally pressed a few buttons until a faint chime was heard. Ferb looked back at the group, satisfied, and raised an eyebrow at their faces. As par his usual obliviousness, Phineas clapped his hands and also turned to the group; "So… what should we do now?" he looked expectantly at Isabella and Baljeet.

Baljeet began scratching his his neck compulsively and turned his face to the ground muttering whilst Isabella piped up. "Well… the remote and time machine still work… and, in my experience, these time-travel mishaps usually end up becoming… well, mishaps. I think, maybe, we should go home before something bad does happen."

Baljeet nodded his agreement, still looking at the ground, and Phineas' face fell. "Buford, what's your say?" he turned hopefully to the bully.

Buford scratched his neck as well and ground the tip of his shoe into the ground. "Well, even though it's a girl's idea, I'm goin' with Isabella."

If it was possible, Phineas' face fell even farther. "Come on guys! Where's your spirit of adventure? Wouldn't be cool to spend New Year's Eve reliving one of the best days of our lives in one of the best years of our lives?"

"Best day of your life maybe, but nerd and I weren't there, remember?"

"That's even more reason to stay here! I can guarantee you that it was an awesome day!" He smiled at Buford, who frowned hesitantly back at him. But the group's faces of uncertainty only worked to strengthen Phineas' resolve. Without even missing a beat, Phineas took off down the street, with Ferb at his side as he called back to the others. "Come on! Let's go find us!"

Ferb froze for a second at the strangely familiar sentence, but shrugged it off and even cracked a small, unnoticeable smile as Isabella threw caution to the wind and ran after her crush while Buford and Baljeet exchanged a look and hurriedly followed in her tracks down the all-too-familiar street with the sprawling oak tree a clear indicator of where they were headed.

As they rounded the slight bend in the road, however, they ran into Ferb's hand as he stood silently behind a bush next to Phineas. Smoothly, Ferb caught and stopped the falling Buford and Baljeet and shushed Isabella who had nimbly leapt out of the way. Shaking his head at them, he pointed to where Phineas was staring. There, right across the street, they could see a nine-year-old Isabella in a pink dress and white tee eating her breakfast right next to the big clear window in her house.

Buford and Baljeet goggled and began turning their heads between the Isabella sitting in her house, to the Isabella in her flattering winter apparel standing next to them, trying to compare the two. Isabella ignored them and squinted at herself fifty yards away. "This is weird," she finally stated, causing Phineas to look round and see she was there for the first time.

He grinned up at her from his crouched position, "You think this is weird, try fighting a robot version of yourself," he said, bumping the fist that Ferb had just extended while still fixing his eyes to the house across the way in hypnotic fascination. After another minute of silence, Phineas tore his eyes away and turned his body around. "So, what should we do?"

"Phineas, we can't change the future, we'll just have to stay out of sight. And is anyone as hot in these clothes as I am?" Isabella pouted.

Everyone else nodded their agreement. "Ferb," Phineas whispered, nudging his British step-brother in the arm softly. Ferb turned, tearing his eyes away with the same effort shown by Phineas, and held out his hand, motioning for everyone to hand him their jackets and assorted scarves, hats and mittens. Upon receiving the lot, Ferb tucked them away in a flash and handed Phineas two cubes little bigger than dice.

"Where'd you get those?" Isabella asked curiously.

"Ferb always keeps a dozen in his pockets," Phineas answered.

"No, I mean where did you get them."

"Oh, well… you remember that chemistry project we failed?"

"Yeah. That was really weird and unexpected for you guys."

"Well this was it."

"But Phineas, these are amazing!" Isabella gushed.

"Yep, that's what everyone else thought, sans chemistry teacher. Apparently this doesn't count as chemistry. Little metallurgy used my foot." Isabella giggled.

"Guys, guys! Isabella's leaving her house! Isabella's leaving her house!" Buford called excitedly.

Phineas, Isabella and Baljeet all spun round in a flash and began trying to squeeze as close as they could to all hide behind the bush on the corner of the street and Isabella walked with a skip in her step to the orange fence across from her house where she could already see objects flying around. "Boy Isabella, you sure look happy about something," Phineas turned his head for a moment to grin at the now-furiously-blushing Isabella who nodded as best she could.

As soon as the younger Isabella could no longer see them, Baljeet and Buford, with Ferb, Phineas and Isabella straight behind them, crawled out from behind the bush and dashed to behind the fence just as the gate snapped shut. "Hey, Phineas. Watcha doin'?" they heard Isabella swoon.

Buford's jaw hung limp for a second and he began soundlessly stuttering. He opened his mouth, gestured with his hands toward the backyard, waved them, shut his mouth and raised his eyebrows. "You sound exactly the same, Isabella!" Baljeet whispered, astonished, before two pairs of hands were cupped over his mouth. Buford and Phineas nodded and they went back to peering through the fence.

"Just turning Perry's involuntary reflex into a sporting event," they heard Phineas reply.

Phineas turned and raised a surprised eyebrow at Ferb, who shrugged. He turned to Isabella. "This doesn't sound like the day we went to the future. Maybe the remote's off." He whacked the remote against his hand and peered at it. Ferb shook his head and Phineas lapsed into silence again.

"Hi Perry, can I try?"

The group turned as they heard footsteps approaching and ducked behind the nearest bushes as they got their first glimpse of Buford and Baljeet walking a little less than a block away. This time it was Baljeet's jaw that dropped as he stared at his younger-self. In six years Baljeet had grown considerably. And now he was looking in shock at the small boy walking next to the larger one.

"Woah, momma!" the group heard Phineas exclaim as they looked up in time to see a baseball land at Baljeet's feet. "Nice shot, Isabella!"

"Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think this ever happened." Baljeet and Buford shook their heads.

"But, Phineas, it must have happened. It's happening right now," Isabella pointed out.

"Did someone lose a ball?"

"Okay, guys. Why don't we remember this? And when did this happen? It can't have happened the day we went to the future… Ferb, do you think we've been flung into an alternate reality?"

Ferb grabbed the scanner back from Phineas and began adjusting it again. "Okay, I say that we should stick around and see what happens. _I _still think that this is some other universe."

"So… if the remote's broken… does that mean we can't get home?" Buford scratched his head.

"Um… I don't know. Ferb, how's it coming?"

Ferb looked up at Phineas and gave him a thumbs-up. "The remote is scanning accurately. Right day, right universe."

"This just get's weirder ev…"

"Someone's coming! Go! Back around the house! Quick!" Phineas cut Baljeet off and took Isabella's arm to pull her around the back into the neighbor's property.

Everyone followed as Phineas and Isabella back behind the fence just in time to here the familiar voice of the delivery-man as he dropped off all the parts for the latest Flynn-Fletcher creation. As Buford slipped around the corner, the last of the group, Ferb strained his ear to here the last of young Isabella thanking the man for his speedy delivery. When he turned back from peering over the fence he was met with the gazes of most of the group.

Phineas shuffled closer to Ferb as best he could while bending his almost-six foot frame to hide behind the fence and cleared his throat. "Okay guys, as far as I'm aware, the remote still works" he looked pointedly at Ferb who nodded, "which means we can get back if we need to. Now, I don't mind if you guys go, but I'm, and hopefully Ferb," he looked at Ferb again who nodded again, "are staying. I want to know what happened today and why we think it was something completely different. Now, who's staying with Ferb and me?"

The group exchanged nervous glances and Baljeet whispered something hurriedly in Buford's ear. There was an awkward pause before Isabella, now wearing a slight blush on her face, spoke up and sidled next to Phineas; "I'll stay with you, Phineas," she swooned. Phineas looked at the other two.

Baljeet looked intimidatingly at Buford with a void of fear in his eyes and tried to stutter an answer out of his already-nervously shaking lips before he was cut off abruptly with a sharp thump to the chest that forced all the air out of his mouth. As he staggered to the ground trying to suck air back into his completely deflated lungs Buford asserted his and Baljeet's decision to stay with the group. "The nerd and I are in," was his comment as he sat next to the heaving Baljeet.

Phineas grinned, somewhat apologetically at Baljeet, at the group and muttered a quiet prayer of thanks before he continued. "It's settled then. And I think this means we need to get new clothes," he gestured around at everyone making each more conscious of the fact that they were in baggy sweatpants and long underwear, "and change our appearance." Everyone nodded. Phineas smiled again and stood fully, stretching his back at the same time; "Onwards to the mall!" he gestured with an aloft hand and began power-marching jokingly down the street, still being careful not to be recognized.

* * *

><p>"So, how do I look?" Isabella blushed as she emerged from the dressing stall to slowly twirl around in front of Phineas and model her new clothes at him. Phineas looked up with a slightly bored gaze, something that was very rarely seen on his face, save for when he was in women's clothing stores, and flicked his eyes slowly over Isabella's developing frame now clad in a completely new - and completely different - apparel.<p>

"You look great! Stunningly beauti-" Phineas gagged and stopped himself, "You look way better than you normally look!" He gagged again at the awful sentence. "Not that you usually look bad! You look great! All the time! Uh… I…"

Isabella shushed him with a soft finger than moved back and twirled around again. "Just be honest Phineas. Does it look good? Would you recognize me as Isabella?"

Phineas gulped hard, shook his head to clear his thoughts, calmed himself down and then nodded, putting a grin back on his face and taking his finger down from where it had made his ear red with scratching. "Yes and yes," he answered firmly, smiling at Isabella and taking her hand.

Isabella grinned and did another twirl before curtsying, "Why thank you good sir," she laughed.

Isabella could not be recognized. Her usually long bouncy ink-black hair was now hanging to just above her neck and was also a fantastically brilliant red. On top of it sat a girlishly pink beret and, upon her nose, sat a designer pair of sunglasses. Replacing her tee and long-sleeved thermal was now a short-sleeved white turtle neck with a small 'FGF' and Fireside Girl insignia emblazoned on one side. Substituting her sweatpants were now a pair of breezily elastic shorts and, to top it off, she now had a brand-new pair of stylish pink shoes. Almost nothing could have made her more excited than having a new outfit to wear.

Phineas smiled again, took her hand and walked out of the store, dropping a quick pile of change on the counter and thanking the woman there as he did so. As they walked quickly to the food court Buford and Baljeet breathily caught up with them and started matching their stride. Buford was now wearing a pair of black jeans combined with a strikingly red teeshirt; to top it off, his hair now hung down to his shoulders and was now a dirty blond.

Baljeet, on the other hand, was considerably cleaned up. His dark complexion was contrasted with a short buzz-cut of stiff, pale blonde hair and on his chin was a short, equally stiff, goatee. His jeans and teeshirt had not been replaced, however; they were simply covered in a new white lab-coat and his eyes were now framed with thickly rimmed glasses.

When Isabella glanced at them she did a comic double take and stared at them over the tops of her sunglasses, surveying them careful. "Wow guys!" she exclaimed, "You did a great job! I can barely recognize you!"

"Thanks" Baljeet turned to her, putting on an astoundingly good New York accent.

Isabella did another double take, "How did you learn to speak like that?"

Baljeet grinned in a very un-Baljeet-like manner, "My Uncle lives in New York, I visit him every spring break. He is rather…" Baljeet scratched his neck, "enthusiastic… when it comes to day trips. But, on the plus side" he closed his eyes and beamed while standing on the balls of his feet, "it is very educational."

"Hey, there's Ferb," Buford muttered. And indeed, there was Ferb strolling up from the opposite end of the mall. As he got closer they all gaped. Ferb looked _fantastic_. His green hair was cut in neat strips and was smoothly cut, hanging out on all sides. It was also now noticeable that it had had a slight amount of blue dye added to it making it more of a teal than its usual forest green. In place of his usual vest and polo shirt was a beige turtleneck and an extremely dark purple waistcoat. His usually clean-shaven face was now adorned with a neat, yet slightly thick mustache and a pair of rimless glasses with thin frames.

When he got within range Phineas simply raised his fist, "Bro, you have bump this," he grinned.

Ferb willingly complied and addressed the surprised faces of everyone else with a raised eyebrow. "Dude, don't you know there's such a thing as overdressing?" Buford questioned rhetorically.

"On the contrary, there is not a reason in the world to not look your best."

"But…! You don't need to look good _all _the time!" Buford stuttered.

"I believe you simply do not being out done by someone with _better taste_." A brief smirk flitted across Ferb's face for a brief instant as he tugged the silver buttoned sleeve of his shirt and adjusted it for perfection.

"Ferb, as a Fireside Girl with eleven fashion designer patches I salute you" Isabella grinned at him. Ferb lowered his tinted glasses and winked at her.

"But what about the mustache?" Buford asked.

"Oh, they're real. Ferb has a… hair growth ray," Baljeet answered.

"Just so you know, I'm expecting very nice birthday presents this year," Ferb added.

"Speaking of real, Phineas, you haven't changed," Isabella stood and pointed at his clothes that were still the same.

"Indeed brother. What shall we do with you?"

* * *

><p>The group walked out of the mall with a very disgruntled Phineas itching his new beige waistcoat, almost matching Ferb's. His hair had been dyed the exact same shade as Ferb's and his hair had been trimmed in the same style as Ferb's too but was shorter. Instead of a turtleneck shirt like his brother had, however, Phineas wore an orange polo shirt. Had someone seen the two they would have thought they were complete genetic brothers without even meeting them.<p>

"Why the bloody hell do I have to wear this?" Phineas asked irritably, tugging at the collar of his shirt as he spoke in a perfect British accent. Isabella giggled at his irritation. "I live with Ferb," Phineas leaned over and told Buford and Baljeet in answer to the stares.

"What's the time?" Isabella asked.

"Eight thirty" Baljeet answered, glancing at his watch.

"That's not good. We should get back," Phineas said, picking up the pace as they exited the mall parking lot and started walking back up Madison Road.

"Okay, so we've got the clothes. We shouldn't be recognized."

"Right… I think we need a faster method of transportation. Ferb…?" Instantly, Ferb produced several more objects, handing one to Isabella and Phineas and one to Baljeet and Buford as well as taking one for himself. Without asking any questions, Phineas and Ferb pressed the buttons on the side of the small devices and were holding motorized scooters the next minute.

"Oh! You have _got_ to be kidding me!" Baljeet exclaimed in exasperation, "Ferb cannot possibly have _everything_!"

"I dunno Baljeet. He's got quite a few tricks up his sleeve. Besides, the project was the miniaturization of objects, we experimented on a whole range of stuff!"

Before Phineas could continue, he was cut off by the sound of a whoop coming from the sky. The whole group simultaneously looked up in time to see a giant shuttlecock flying through the air and Phineas narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Ferb, what does that look like to you?" he asked, eyes still narrowed.

Ferb reached into his pocket again and produced from it a large folded up blueprint which he promptly began to undo. When done he simply pointed at it while Phineas read out loud. "Platypult badminton set. Blueprint model number two." He squinted hard at it and back at the shuttlecock still flying through the air. "Ferb, did we ever make the Platypult Badminton set?" he asked.

"No, no you didn't," Isabella replied, also looking hard into the air at it.

"Okay guys! Change of plan! We're going downtown!"

* * *

><p><strong>AN - The second chapter of **_**On a New Year's Eve**_**! Sorry it took twice as long to upload than I thought it would but here it is.**

**Some explanations are in order. When Ferb says he's expecting "very nice" birthday presents he's referring to the fact that he paid for all the new clothes and hair styles.**

**Now, hopefully Ferb didn't come across too OOC for all the talking he was doing and I'll try to trim that down. I also apologize if this chapter seems to lack meaning in the story, 'cause it seems to me that it has a bit too much description about their appearances in it. Oh well.**

**I also hope that the story isn't too predictable for the next few chapters though those of you who have seen the movie should catch on quick. See you next time!**


	3. The Portal

**Chapter 3: The Portal**

"Guys, follow that shuttlecock!"

Isabella had to grab onto Phineas and her beret for dear life as Phineas stuck his foot down hard, revved the scooter and careened off down the road following his younger self with a mad glint in his eye as Ferb quickly revved his and followed suit. Phineas took each corner at a hair raising pace and skillfully wove the scooter smoothly though the uncrowded streets and suburban Danville.

"Phineas!" Isabella cried out against the wind, clutching tighter around Phineas' midsection and digging her nails into both his shirt and her beret. "Aren't we going a little fast?"

Almost thinking that he didn't hear her against the wind, Isabella's heart skipped a beat as he took another corner. Then she heard laughing, and not just any laughing, Phineas' distinctive amused chuckle, something that almost sounded condescending were it not coming from _him._ "Isabella! That's all part of the fun!" he laughed. Isabella tried to frown her hardest at his antics and tried to make sure he could see her. But she couldn't keep frowning as she watched his face and eventually joined in on his laughter.

They were so engrossed in their laughter that they didn't even notice the platypus on the side of the road in a fedora chattering to a tow-truck driver while his hovercraft was lifted onto the tow-truck's bed with a low clank.

As they laughed, they were interrupted by a discreet tap on each of their shoulders and turned to see Ferb, with a proper set and motor goggles and gloves, riding racing-style on his scooter, though it looked more like a motorbike, next to them on the street. With a simple wave of his hand at the sky, Phineas and Isabella suddenly became aware that the shuttlecock that his younger self was riding on was making a downward trajectory towards a vaguely familiar purple building just on the outskirts of the central city.

With a wave, Phineas signaled the group to stop as they flew by the suburban houses they knew so well and skid to a shuddering halt on all of their scooters right next to the old concrete pavement, leaving a rather ugly black tire skid smeared across the road with a bubbling, hissing sound. Getting off his own scooter, Ferb took off his goggles with a snap and came to stand next to Phineas and Isabella who had also dismounted their scooter.

With an unuttered fascination, the three of them stared up in rapt awe at the purple building's impossibly scaleable heights. Over a hundred stories of apartments combined with an odd rooftop penthouse gave the building it's distinctive shape, with a rounded top and a blocky balcony sticking out peculiarly from one side. Their hypnotic trance was broken a moment later with a loud screech, a thump, shouting and hitting and several clangs. Curiously, they turned around for a disturbing scene to meet their eyes.

Buford and Baljeet were tangled up in such a way that one couldn't tell where one ended and the other began. Their tangled mass was sitting atop a slightly crumpled scooter that had seen too much abuse and had skidded to a halt, flipped and smashed. To top it off, Buford was pulling Baljeet every which way while Baljeet screamed and jabbed at Buford. "You are the worst driver I have ever seen! Why could you not just let me drive! I have qualifications!"

"Yeah? What would those be? Qualified to be nerd?" Buford scoffed.

"Oh yeah? Well at least I can drive gorilla-fingers!"

Buford was about to lunge and pummel Baljeet like a crazed hippo when he was lifted into the air suddenly and set on his feet whilst Baljeet had the same thing done to him. As their heads spun the were both rewarded with a sharp smack to each of the heads causing a unified "Ow!" to be heard.

Phineas walked over to stand beside his step-brother who had taken his hands off the strange duo and blew on each, as if clearing the smoke from a fired gun. "Guys, we don't have time for fighting. We've got to find a way to the top of that building fast. We're not going to be able to do that with you two fighting like a pair of old bulls! And Baljeet, what happened to the accent?"

"It's kinda hard to do when you've got this baboon as a driver." Baljeet stuck a thumb in Buford's direction and crossed his arms, pretending to be the pretentious New Yorker he was disguised as.

Buford glared in his direction angrily and with a growl lunged at him. "That's it!" he cried attempting to loop his hands around Baljeet's thin neck.

"Guys," Phineas warned raising his finger as Ferb raised his hand again. At the sight of Ferb's outstretched palm, Buford and Baljeet both fell into an oppressed silence, though they both continued glaring at the other and shooting dirty looks all round.

"Speaking of accents, I see a startling lack of British in yours, _Phineas_," Baljeet pointed out, annoyed, sticking a finger into Phineas' chest.

"Alright, alright guys. We each keep to our assigned accents," Phineas said, reverting to British again. "It'll be…"

"Guys! I found a way up!" Isabella called from where she stood holding the door to the building open. Phineas, Baljeet and Buford's jaws dropped and each walked over through the door in fascination.

"Wow Isabella! I didn't know you could do that!" Phineas exclaimed, coming up to her and grinning congratulatorily at her. "And to think, I was thinking of building a rocket to get up to the top."

"Well, you didn't think I got my persuasion patch for nothing, did you?" she giggled.

"British accent!" Baljeet called from the front of the group, making a frown appear briefly across Phineas' features.

As the group made its way to the elevator they could just barely see around the lowest floor of the building. It was drab and grey, with aging whitewashed floorboards and purple walls. Though it had no dust and the paint was immaculately finished the place had the appearance of being run down and abused.

The base floor was large, squarish and cramped. It had a few offshoots from the main area, which was mainly taken up by the glass shielded booths of the receptionists, that all led through tiny hallways to locked doors. The one offshoot that was an exception to this was the hallway leading directly off from the reception area. Down this hall, which Phineas half-timidly explored, they found the elevators. Two very doubtful looking elevators which looked as though half the time they were out of order.

Trying to squeeze into the hallway, the receptionists completely ignored all of them and their plight. Though they all pushed squirmed and Baljeet squeaked a few times, they all finally managed to shove themselves, very uncomfortably, into the less than generous elevator. "Okay… guys" Phineas wheezed out, being squashed completely between Buford and Isabella, who was pressed up against the side of the mirrored wall, "Top floor… right… Ferb?"

Ferb tried his best to nod between Baljeet and the wall and Phineas tried his best to reach over Buford and maneuver his arm to hit the button like a snake weaving its way through a cramped maze. As Phineas reached as far as he could, stretching his arm to its maximum, his fingers only came within an inch of the button to go to the top floor, squirming and wriggling frantically in an effort to try and press it. Phineas pressed himself awkwardly against Buford in an effort to push his arm the last inch and hit it, finally pushing it with the very tip of his outstretched middle finger.

With a muted ping, the dirty round button at the top lit up a diffused waxy yellow and Phineas retracted his arm to slump into the corner, pulling a few deep breaths of sweaty, heady air into his squashed lungs with a gasp. With a jolt, they felt the elevator begin to make its ascent, accentuated and highlighted by a light jingling tune that wafted from the rusty speakers above them. Just barely, Phineas could sing the words that went along with the tune in the elevator, even though he hadn't heard it in years.

"_Gitchee gitchee goo means that I love you..._" he sung softly under his breath, every ping of the elevator reaching another floor interrupting his train of thought like it had smacked into another train moving in completely the wrong direction.

Behind him sweetly he could hear Isabella closing her eyes and humming it cheerily to herself as well. He wondered what she was thinking about at that moment. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't ever remember asking Isabella what she liked to do while she was alone; what she thought about. Though he was only sixteen, Phineas realized he did _a lot_, that he had hardly taken any time to be a kid, that even though he had the optimism, imagination and mostly innocent naïvety of a child, he worked harder than most adults. Maybe he was rushing into life too fast, wasn't taking any time to enjoy the small things. In his sixteen years of existence, he realized with a shock, he hadn't ever just sat and enjoyed an ice cream cone; he had built a giant ice cream for everyone instead.

His thoughts were interrupted again by the final solemn ping of the elevator as it reached the top floor and opened its doors in a futuristic manner with a hiss and everyone in the elevator scrambled and tumbled out with gasp as they tried to get a gulp of clean air. As Phineas stood and regained his composure he looked around and found that the top floor of this building, topped with the jingle-esque words _Doofensmirtz Evil Inc._, was a lot more spacious than the floors down below. It was open too, and had a cool, fresh breeze blowing through it.

"Well, looks like we're here," Phineas observed.

"Look here, we got another Sherlock," Buford rolled his eyes sarcastically.

"Which apartment suite do you think we landed in?" Phineas asked, ignoring Buford's taunting and turning to Ferb with a look of child-like curiosity.

Ferb eyed him keenly for a second then turned and walked to the end of the hall, covered by a slitted window, and started working his way down methodically, checking every name on every door; holding out his finger to check wind speed; taking out a map to study their position before finally pressing his ear against the plain lavender-colored hardwood of a brass-knobbed door clearly labeled in bold letters with the distinctive name _Doofensmirtz_.

"Doofensmirtz?" Isabella read out-loud, questioning the name with a raised eyebrow; partially reminding Phineas of her disgusted look.

"That's the mayor's name, right?" Buford asked.

Phineas nodded slowly, turning his head partially to face Buford but keeping his eyes fixed on the door where Ferb still knelt with his ear pressed. "Yeah… yeah. Old mayor Doofensmirtz. Do you reckon he lives here?"

Their chattering was soon silenced, however, as Ferb tapped each of them and pressed a finger to his lips, shaking his head when each looked. Tentatively, he pressed his ear against the door and closed his eyes, focusing hard on the voices he could hear coming from beyond the old door; two plainly familiar, yet completely out of place in this decrepit-looking building.

The next thing they heard they did not have to follow Ferb's lead and press their ears against the door. From inside they could just faintly hear the crash of something falling from the balcony that Phineas guessed was only a little whiles away. "Perry!" They heard younger Phineas exclaim from inside the room. Ferb pulled his head back from the door slightly faster than he normally would and turned his head to share a surprised look with Phineas, whose eyes had widened only a tad visibly.

"Didn't you guys find it at all odd that Perry just _happened_ to be there?" Isabella asked, a slight tone of exasperation leaking into her voice and her hands creeping unconsciously to her hips.

"Well, for starters, we don't remember this. And for another, he disappears every day," Phineas explained, seeming to think it was obvious to assume this, whilst Ferb shook his head. Isabella was just barely able to stop her jaw dropping in disbelief at the two she had known almost her whole life and it suddenly registered with her that, despite his uncanny intelligence and skill with women, even his intuitiveness; Ferb's naïvety, when it came to certain things, was almost on par with Phineas'.

"You guys!" Isabella cried out, being silenced quickly by both Ferb and Phineas.

"We can't let them hear us" Phineas hissed quietly.

As soon as silence had descended on the group again they could hear a zap emanate from within the apartment and the various exclamations of the owner. Everyone, even Ferb it seemed, though he was pressed against the door as hard as seemed humanly possible, scooted closer in an effort to get their ears closer and pick up the sounds from within. Even as close as they could get, old wood walls scratching against them, they could only hear disjointed snatches of conversation from the occupants of the rooftop penthouse. "It… it's a couch."

Isabella turned a half-perplexed, half-weirded out face to Phineas who glanced at her, shrugged and shook his head. As they stood and listened for even longer it seemed to them as if the voices they could hear were growing fainter and fainter, as if running off into the distance on a windy day. Second after agonizing second passed while their hearts froze and unfroze in anticipation of what would happen next until, after nothing had been heard for several minutes save for the slight shuffling of paper, Ferb coughed and tried to back away from the door only to find that the whole group was pressed on top of him.

Unconsciously, while they had been listening, the everyone had pressed themselves against one another and had become hopelessly tangled up together. Slowly, trying not to move in case he stepped on someone or bent something, Phineas pulled up one leg and placed deftly outside the group onto the hallway floor, shaking while he did so. Once it was in place, making Phineas stand awkwardly in a semi-split position that would have been extremely amusing to an outside observer but extremely uncomfortable to Baljeet and Buford, he lifted his other leg and placed it next to the other one.

At a snail's pace, the rest of the group began to follow his lead as Phineas almost unbalanced bending over backwards. "This is the most uncomfortable game of Twister I've ever played with you people," Buford commented as he bent his leg in an effort to squeeze his thigh over Baljeet's frowning face while he did the same with his arm. Everyone nodded in agreement and Baljeet made an annoyed grunt.

"You think this is more pleasant for me?" he half-yelled at Buford, "I don't like having this view of you!"

"Calm down 'Jeet, bee in your bonnet?" Phineas asked trying his hardest to keep his face away from Isabella's as their bodies stuck together; both blushing furiously and refusing to look at the other.

"If he doesn't stop 'is whining there _will_ be a bee in his bonnet," Buford growled, glaring at the darkly skinned Indian teen with supreme annoyance boldly graffitied all across his face in an extremely offensive manner.

As Buford and Baljeet began scrapping at each other again they were quickly prodded by Ferb who was the only one in the group to have realized that they were all completely untangled and free of bodily restraint. Phineas blinked once in confusion as Ferb tapped him and it dawned upon him that he no-longer had a reason to feel awkward, finding that his personal bubble was in absolutely no danger of being popped, least of all by Isabella, who had moved herself over to the other side of the group without so much as a single sound. Phineas shook his head to clear his thoughts.

"So, are we gonna go in?" Buford asked while raising one eyebrow, making his eye appear to be extremely bulbous.

Phineas shook his head at the ground again, still trying to clear his head and Isabella piped up. "Are we allowed to go in? I mean, wouldn't it be rude?" she voiced concernedly.

Baljeet rolled his eyes and Buford stood next to him. "Well they've" Buford pointed Phineas, still shaking his head, and Ferb, "already been in once, what harm is there in going in again?" He shrugged his shoulders.

"But what if we get caught?"

"I think we've already been running that risk since we got here," Phineas said, joining back into the conversation. He wiped his eyes tiredly.

"So we're going?" Baljeet asked.

Phineas nodded slowly. "Yeah, yeah." He moved towards the door, Ferb moving aside just as if Phineas had brushed him away. Slightly pusillanimously, Phineas reached out his hand and grasped the door knob, slowly turning it with a click and pushing the seventies style door open without even a creak. The room he looked into was quite a shock to his eyes. It was large, with a high ceiling and dark lighting. The walls, save for that of the kitchen and living room, which were tucked neatly and unnoticeably into corners, were a dark monotonous purple, made all the more unappealing by the owner's terrible use of green lighting.

Across the floor, made of faded lavender painted wood, was, in some areas, spread fake animal hides and fur, like balding areas on a particularly old and disgruntled cat. Spread like butter across the ceiling and hard to see with the bad lighting, were a collection of pointed and odd objects resembling incomplete devices that were quite nebulized by the dark spiraling pools of shadow cast by the high walls and low doorways, ultimately contrasting with the day outside in very noticeable ways. On one side of the room was a large hanger door leading to the balcony and on the other, not covered by the kitchen, was a raised platform and dais, seemingly encompassing an old generator of some sort. And in the very center of the room was a highly polished machine.

"It's… nice?" Isabella commented, walking into the room behind Phineas with a slightly appalled look on her face. Phineas shook his head the tiniest increment.

"Don't be patronizing. It's awful," Buford grunted, having trouble with Baljeet dragged along in his wake.

"I dunno. I quite like the way the green LEDs illuminate the… ooff." Baljeet groaned, not recovering fast enough for his liking while Buford's elbow retreated.

Phineas' face contorted for a slight iota in confusion at Baljeet's statement and his almost-bulging eyes wandered about the room in great, roaming arcs. The place was dark and dreary, almost beyond help, and Phineas could think of more than a few things he'd like to do to it if he ever got his hands on a permission form. It was… bad. But the room was not what held his attention the longest. It was the machine in the middle of the room. Large, obviously metal and, almost as obviously, constructed by someone who was just as insane as he was brilliant. Everything about it seemed to ring danger in a way quite unfamiliar to Phineas.

Phineas was used to danger; relished in it, in fact. It was just another part of life. But the danger known to him was just as tangled in fun as anything else. This machine didn't look fun. Sure it looked cool, what with its rounded base and circular hula-hoop like structure on top, reminiscent of an old iMac computer. But it just didn't give off the air of having been built with good intentions at heart… though it did have a bit of a Flynn-Fletcher ring to it.

"Um, what is it?" Isabella asked.

Ferb took a step toward the machine and looked it over. Isabella jerked out a hand and quickly pulled it back, using it instead to cut off the blood flow to Phineas' fingers, causing him to wince. "What'd ya think the machine did to them?" she asked nervously, referring to the obvious disappearance of younger Phineas and Ferb. Though she was brave in many respects, Isabella was a sucker for drama and mystery. Phineas shrugged and continued watching his brother.

He stood and straightened his back, yawning as he did so. Getting a look from everyone else, he calmly gestured to the machine, with a disinterested lowering of his eyelids and slight twitch of his lip. "It's a multiverse traveller. I suppose it casts a portal when active." He looked to everyone else in an inquiring manner, as if daring them to say they didn't understand in a thoroughly unpatronizing manner. Simply telling them to speak up.

Almost on cue, Buford spoke up. "Look, I've no idea what that is!" He missed Ferb's look completely.

"This machine makes a portal to another multiverse, more commonly, though erroneously, referred to as 'dimensions'. It would probably be one quite similar to our own. What is there to not understand?"

"Don't patronize me" Buford pushed Baljeet aside boredly, like he was bounce around punching bag.

"So where's the portal?"

"We probably have to activate the machine, then we can have some fun. Ferb?"

The briefest flash of a grin appeared for a single frame across Ferb's face as he took the lever on the side of the control panel and yanked it downwards with a satisfying squeak of resistance. No matter how fun building or using a machine was, Ferb's favorite part would always be flicking the switch, pulling the lever or pressing the button and watching it come to life.

The machine bucked for an iota like a defibrillator user and with quite a satisfying concerto of bass electrical hum the machine cast out a glowing, green ringed portal like blowing a smoke ring. Isabella, Buford and Baljeet gasped in awe and amazement at the machine as it worked its otherworldly magic that glinted and danced in Phineas' eyes with a crazy perpetuality. As the portal faded into crystally-clear transparency Ferb squinted.

"It's a couch?" Buford cocked his eyebrow.

Carefully, Phineas walked up and stuck his head through the portal, looking around. It seemed to be safe. The room was the same, save for the fact that it had a brighter, and ultimately more contrasting color scheme, and it was completely empty. Actually, it quite a bit more than just empty of people, it was empty of almost everything of the room they were standing in. There were no machines, no weird lights, no mechanical pieces lying around, nothing. Only furniture and an empty Las Vegas-style booth. And, only just noticing it, a security camera.

Phineas pulled his head back into the room. "Well, it looks safe. Just a security camera. Ferb, do you think if we moved the portal we would move where it opened?"

"I think moving the portal's spatial coordinates here would most likely open the portal at the corresponding spatial coordinates o…"

"That's enough." Buford grabbed Baljeet, forcing him into silence.

"Let's do it."

With surprisingly minimal effort, as Phineas and Ferb grabbed onto either side of the portal, it began almost gliding along the floor towards the balcony. Every inch further they got, the easier pushing the portal became, Phineas found with a slight shock. In fact, it was the easiest thing Phineas had ever had to move, though he was slightly curious as to why the almost-opposite was the hardest. The almost-opposite being Candace.

Though he had found it easy whilst doing it, Phineas found himself slightly drained of energy and slumped against the side of the chromed device. "So, Isabella, did it work?" he asked good-naturedly.

Isabella took a nimble step over his outstretched legs to go and have a look through the still open portal. As she got to it, quickly glancing inside simply to see if it was different, then turning back to Phineas, she told him "Yes, yes it is." Phineas nodded with a smile on his face and leaned his head back against the contraption. Isabella smiled and turned to look back in the portal. Her face paled slightly and she turned, again, to Phineas.

"Um, hey, Phineas, well…" she almost jolted a hand up to yank at a lock of her hair, "have a look." She gestured to the portal.

Phineas, Ferb by his side, got up slowly, not quite regretting leaving the comfortable cradle of his now-vacated seat, and stood beside Isabella to stare inside the portal to the world that their counterparts had already gone through, presumably. Phineas' jaw slowly turned from a yawn to and open-mouthed gawk of wonder. Baljeet, from his sitting position on the floor of the suite, looked up curiously at the two's facial expressions.

"What's up?" he asked.

Phineas turned to look at him, wonderment still gleaming intoxicatingly in his eye. "Well… 'Jeet, I think you might want to revoke the 'similar' statement."

* * *

><p><strong>AN - May I present to you, Chapter 3! Viola!  
><strong>

**Okay, now, I'm not sure but I think this took slightly longer than the other chapters to upload... but, in accordance, it is also, as far as I can tell, the longest of the three.  
><strong>

**Also a note to you, reader, anyone that happens to see any 'nonexistent' or 'erroneous' words in this chapter should know that I have coined them. They're all derived from perfectly legitimate English words which should be, more or less, easy to trace. I also feel that, as a writer, I can contribute to the language.  
><strong>

**Please enjoy.**

**PS, I'd also like to extend my warmest thanks to Alycia31 for her glowing review. It warmed my heart and I'm glad you like it. This chapter is dedicated to you, thanks. :)**


	4. New Multiverse

**Chapter 4: New Multiverse**

"What do you mean?"

Phineas grinned and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Come, have a look." He gestured widely with his hand for Baljeet to come over to the portal.

Baljeet, curiously, got up from his cross-legged position on the floor where he had been reading a pocket textbook on advanced quantum physics and walked over to the side of the balcony to stare with Phineas, Ferb and Isabella over to the other side while Buford followed, from where _he_ had been rummaging through the fridge, suit. As Baljeet stood and focused his eyes, he gasped, moving closer to the portal.

"Is that…"

"Danville" Phineas nodded, "Completely different"

Buford hurried his pace and went to look in the portal himself. There, clear as day, was Danville. With all the same buildings and all the same features. At least, most of the same features. Whilst the roads in Danville were, almost always, packed with cars, trucks and buses, either driving or parked on the side, the place Buford was looking at had hardly any. To be more accurate, none. There were no normal cars and no normal people walking and going about their lives. The streets were completely empty.

To make it even eerier, the empty streets and empty sidewalks were illuminated by almost equally empty lights. Each streetlamp cast a dark soulless puddle of light on its stretch of city in a thoroughly depressing manner. Everything there was dark and soulless, even the sky, which rippled, bubbled and boiled like the cold depths of a murky cauldron, threatening rain and dreariness.

The buildings, contrary to the buildings they were used to, were all immaculate, smooth and perfectly finished. All made of the same lavender concrete with streaks of blood red added here and there, appearing as dark stains under the horrible lighting. All the windows were polished to perfection and shone brightly and clearly with an inhumanly possible smoothness, as if they had simply taken the surface of a still lake and mounted it in a wall; save, of course, for their green coloration.

The most difference Phineas could spot, however, was the picture and video displayed on every billboard and every video screen. Though there far more than in regular Danville and each displayed a clearly different message than another they all had a consistent image and theme. That of a faintly recognized man in a black coat with a small goatee and and eyepatch over one eye. The themes of each seemed to be the same as well. They didn't so much advertise a product as they did the fact that no one, it seemed, could buy it.

If Phineas had thought that the machine didn't look fun, he had yet to formulate a strong enough opinion of this place. At the very least, it radiated in great, sweeping waves of repulsion, like a he was a magnet and this was another. He took a small step back from the portal. "Now that…" he trailed off. He couldn't find words to describe it. He didn't know what to do. His curiosity was dragging him through the portal and his calculating mind was telling him to go home.

Baljeet raised and eyebrow of questioning, "It is… ?"

Phineas shook his head distractedly and looked at Baljeet. "What?" he asked.

"You, you started speaking and stopped."

"I… uh." Phineas shook his head distractedly again. The more he looked at this place the more his head started to hurt. Or… somehow, feel full. Or… more like it was somehow incomplete.

"Are we going through?" Buford queried, standing by the very cutting edge of the balcony closest to the portal and the curious world beyond. There were nods of agreement and Buford began to walk through the portal.

"**No!**" came a shout, and Buford was pulled back abruptly, almost losing his balance. Everyone turned extremely curiously to see who had made the startled noise and all were rather surprised to find Phineas, with a look they had never seen before smothered across his pointed features, holding as if dear life itself depended on it onto Buford's arm.

"What!"

Phineas seemed to have only just realized that he had shouted out loud and grabbed onto Buford's arm and a dull color flushed his face. He let go, almost claw-like, of Buford's arm and retreated from them all slightly, looking at the ground and staring at his shoes. Ferb moved closer to him and put a steadying hand on his shoulder while Phineas started to mumble apologetically again. Isabella took a step forward, "What do you mean, Phineas?" she questioned as a teacher would to a small child.

He looked up with a bright, but quite obviously false to anyone who had ever spent a day with him, smile and shook his head. "Isabella!" he half rolled his eyes, "I'm _fine_. Why do you ask?"

"You were trembling like her dog and trying to make my arm drop off." Baljeet nodded as he stood next to Buford.

"So, why don't you want us to go through the portal?" Isabella asked, a bit flummoxed.

Phineas put on his best patronizing ridiculous face and shook his head a minute amount. "I… of course we… you… it's just…" he came to a halt and sighed. "Well, the truth is… a have a bad feeling about this portal universe. No, I don't have any proof" he shook his head again at Baljeet's outstretched finger, "Just a really, really bad feeling about this."

Baljeet and Buford shook their heads slowly and ashamedly. "But, Phineas, we won't know until we go through. We followed you before, I want you to trust me now."

Phineas looked up into Isabella's eyes and sighed in defeat. "Okay, but… I don't want anything to happen to you guys." Ferb gave him a comforting nudge.

"Okay! Enough with all this gooey mushy emotional sh…" Isabella shot Buford a death stare, "aaaaa… toosh… shahtoosh. Enough of this shahtoosh!" he exclaimed awkwardly

"Shahtoosh?"

Buford flicked his eyes around cautiously. "It's real. Look it up." At the perplexed faces of all present Buford simply shrugged and walked straight through the portal. Baljeet quickly followed suit and practically hopped through the portal followed close behind by Isabella and Phineas being pushed by Ferb. Phineas dug his heels unconsciously into the ground of the concretely paved balcony and stared at the portal like it was an alien.

As soon as all of them were through they had a good look at the other Danville again - but in more detail. The whole group gasped in awe again as, close enough that they could reach out and stroke their hands across it smooth silky material, a monumentous great, purple blimp sailed, Phineas and Ferb deduced quickly that it was robotically controlled, right next to the building they were perched on. It was enormously, mind-bogglingly huge with a great, grey, grizzly cage underslung like a battered shoebox from its purple sagging grasp. They could barely hear the bass hum of its motors as it passed.

Ferb was the first to break out of the spell and look around, taking precautionary measures to make sure that nobody knew they were here. He took steps around the balcony, taking care to stay in the known security camera's blind spot, and looked around for more. As he looked he saw one just out of reach of the balcony and another swiveling one on the other side. Thinking fast and without missing a beat of his heart, Ferb strolled quickly over to the other side and, with a quick jab out by his foot, knocked the security camera over to face the opposite side of the building and broke its motor. In another fluid motion he had crossed the room without being seen and did the same to the first camera.

Phineas clapped and Ferb did a minute polite bow. "So, what now?"

"I dunno, guess we should explore."

Isabella nodded in approval and walked toward the one door that she could see exiting the room, a large metal one with big, ugly rivets along the sides, a big press bar handle jutting awkwardly out of the front and, in big flashy lettering, the eye catching words '**Warning - Exit for Emergency - ONLY**' stamped out of what looked like fire-blasted sheet metal and brutally welded across the top, highlighted with red streaks around it.

Almost as soon as her petite fingers and attenuated fingernails had brushed the bar handle as she had reached to open the door she jumped at the whoop of joy she heard coming from what sounded like behind the wall. All eyes widened and they each scrambled for a place to hide. Isabella looked around fearfully like a dear in the headlights and sprang from the door to hide behind the empty stall. Phineas jumped and hung from the edge of the balcony, eventually finding a ledge to stand on, while Ferb followed. Baljeet squeezed as best he could into a dark corner piled with some curtains. Buford looked wildly around as he listened to the whizzing of something getting closer. Out of desperation and with nowhere else to go he ran and slid behind the couch as a pair of doors no one had noticed before swung open to let out two chairs on small pedestals come through and drop off their occupants.

From his hiding place in the corner Baljeet could just see with a gasp what looked like two of the same person. Or, at least, identical twins. He ducked back behind the curtains and thought about what he had seen which was, admittedly, not a lot. He hadn't been able to see the people clearly, just enough to see that they were almost completely identical, save for the clothes. Cautiously, he ducked down and snuck another look around the side.

Both men had their backs turned to him and were looking about the room. To the couch behind which Buford was hiding, to the center of the room where the portal had originally been, and around it, seemingly unable to find what they had been looking for. "Eh… I could've sworn it was here. I mean… it can't have just vanished…" Baljeet recognized the voice of the man younger Phineas and Ferb had been talking to and peered closer at the white lab-coat covered backside in front of him.

"I don't think you designed it as well as you thought you did." Baljeet heard the second man, of equal stature and build, speak; in an equally rambly and grating voice. He looked to have the same kind of hair as the first man and seemed to be identical. The only difference Baljeet could see was the contrasting coats. While the first man, who didn't seem to command much authority, wore a slightly translucent white lab-coat the second man, who _did_ speak with authority, wore a thicker and heavier looking coat of black matt leather.

"But… it was here!" Doofensmirtz waved his arms comically, standing in the middle of the room and trying his best to focus his eyes on the quite portal-less air that hovered there in quite a mocking manner. "Hey…" Doofensmirtz stuck one hand to his chin and the other in his lab-coat, "Where's Monogram? He was here when I came through… do you think he did something to the portal?" Without waiting for an answer from his more menacing new dimension counterpart, Doofensmirtz walked over to the booth where Isabella was hidden and peered over it to the empty chair.

Isabella could just barely register footsteps coming closer to her hiding place and she did her best to stay quiet and as squished as she could against the inside of the booth. She could hear his breathing and footsteps echoing around her as he leaned over to inspect it. Her heartbeat quickened to the pace of a race-horse and she squeezed herself tighter, willing her breathing not to give her away as Doofensmirtz leaned ever closer.

If he flicked his eyes downwards just the smallest amount he would catch sight of her. Just that little bit. She terrifiedly flicked her eyes up to stare at the man above her, praying so hard that he wouldn't notice her quickened breathing, like that of a captured rabbit, or her one foot sticking out. If she hadn't been as scared she would have noted, with a slight amount of humor, his pointed nose, almost as big and pointed as Phineas', his prominent chin, the bags under his eyes and his cartoonish slouch.

He swept his eyes mercilessly around her, still without noticing, it seemed, and kept rubbing his chin. _Just leave_, thought Isabella. She was usually very well disposed to people and, though she was almost just as much an introvert as she was an extravert, had learned to have fun around them, only wishing them to go when they wanted to. _But_, she reminded herself, _That was when they wouldn't do who knows what to you if they caught you_. She had almost never been as terrified in her life as she was now.

"No, no. He gets the day off after eleven." Doofensmirtz turned and furrowed his brow at his scarred twin. Isabella breathed a slight sigh of relief as she heard him walking away and stretched out her legs, trying to straighten them out and slow her heartbeat.

"Well that's just… stupendous" Doofensmirtz caught the stare of the other Doofensmirtz and quickly changed his sentence.

"So, basically, you do _not_ have a portal."

"I… uh… erm… no." Doofensmirtz rubbed the back of his neck nervously.

"_Or_ a portal device."

"Well, when you… no." Other Doofensmirtz rubbed his eye, almost ashamed, and put his fingers to his head, quite obviously thinking.

"Okay… so you'll just have to build a duplicate. Now, we shall proceed to my lab." Other Doofensmirtz waved his arms emphatically.

"Oooo… what does it have? I bet it's bigger than mine… is that too patronizing? I always feel too patronizing… I think that comes from my father. He was _always_ patronizing to the point you wanted to punch him. Actually, I can't understand why anybody put up with it… I think that's probably…"

Other Doofensmirtz covered his eye, this time genuinely ashamed, and led the still rambling regular Doofensmirtz out of the room through another door adjacent to the chute doors that no one had noticed and considered holding it open for a split second. Instead he let it slam with a poof of air in Doofensmirtz's face and let him open it for himself to follow on. Doofensmirtz opened the door, still rambling on, and let it hiss shut with a soft click, walking up the stairs to follow Other Doofensmirtz.

As soon as Isabella heard the door click shut and listened for the definitely retreating footsteps of the men she squeezed herself out from under the desk and popped like a Jack-in-the-box out from between it. She carefully dusted the filth that had collected from the floor off her clothes and looked out of the booth to see Buford coming out of his hiding spot, Baljeet doing the same and Ferb's fingers on the edge of the balcony.

She walked over stiffly to help Baljeet out and then went to the edge of the balcony to see what Phineas and Ferb were doing. As she got closer she noticed that Phineas' fingers were not hidden by Ferb's as she had thought and, rather to her shock, were not hanging on at all. Curiously, she looked over the edge of the railing and was met with Ferb's face a foot and a half-foot away from hers. "Hey Ferb… Phineas…" she added after noticing his brightly red hair underneath Ferb as he perched on a ledge below him, "Uh… watcha guys doin'?"

Phineas did his best to grin up at her from under Ferb's feet. "Well, funnily enough, Ferb and I've run into a spot o' trouble. You see, I got myself stuck down here and, though Ferb's quite the acrobat, we figure that his hold on the railing is a tad precarious and that it's best not to try anything. To put it simply… we're stuck." He flashed an even wider grin at her.

_Wow, he really has got Ferb's accent down_. "Okay, Ferb, you grab onto my hand," Ferb cautiously let go and swiftly joined their hands, "and Baljeet and Buford" she signaled them from where they had come to stand next to her, "You help me pull them…" she tugged hard and Baljeet and Buford did too. Ferb started to come up. "Okay… almost there… Ferb, you're…" she was cut off as, for not the first time that day, the big hinging doors opened with a whoosh and a crack and, before any of the group could even turn and react, a robot swiftly flew out and started moving about the room.

With a small shriek, Isabella felt Baljeet and Buford letting go of her out of shock and felt her feet leave the ground and herself fly, with all the grace awarded to flightless animals flung into space, over the edge of the balcony and down past Ferb. For a split second she saw several images flash before her eyes and wondered briefly, though she immediately found the thought silly at that time, if she would die. Her trance was broken an iota later with a jabbing, electric jolt running through her arm as Phineas tightened his grip around her wrist and Ferb around her other hand.

With barely a second's hesitation, Baljeet and Buford watched the robot turn its head and ran to climb over the building's safety railing and join the rest of their friends. "Guys! No, wait!" they subconsciously heard Phineas cry as they followed Isabella's example. Before any of the knew it they were all dangling from the side of the building; Phineas and Ferb hanging onto the ledge they were positioned on, Ferb having had his hold slip, Isabella hanging onto them, Baljeet hanging onto her leg with both hands and Buford with a hand on both Isabella's and Baljeet's legs.

"Of _course_, this is the one day Girly doesn't wear a skirt," Buford muttered, the wind carrying it to Baljeet and 'Girly'.

"What!" she exclaimed in slight anger, "Buford! Eww!" She kicked at him with the foot he was holding on to and the whole chain swung.

"Not appropriate Buford."

"Guys!" Phineas called from the top of the chain, "don't swing! Ferb and I can barely hold on as it is!"

"It'd be easier if Buford wasn't being a sick… ugh."

"Okay! Don't know what he said but I can guess! Now just hold on! Ferb and I are thinking of something!"

"What else would we be doing?" Buford scoffed sarcastically, the wind whipping his words around.

Phineas ignored the remark and turned to Ferb. "What are we gonna do?" he asked. Ferb shrugged and Phineas looked around. This building was tall. Hanging from the balcony he noticed some ropes hanging down; looking around he could see another, smaller blimp coming along just about right underneath them; looking down he could see what he could theorize were rotating tiles mounted in the side of the building and looking even further down he could see a pile of what looked like parachutes. He nudged Ferb and gestured at them and Ferb nodded. Phineas just hoped that the fall wouldn't hurt _too_ much.

Closer… closer… he willed it. The blimp moved painfully slow and Phineas was having trouble judging the distance. There was just too much being sent to his head. Closer… closer… he turned and nodded at Ferb. He blinked, _three… two… one_, at once, in complete sync, Phineas and Ferb let go of the ledge and with a shriek from Isabella, Baljeet _and_ Buford, they plummeted toward the balloon. Phineas did his best not to hit anyone but, even so, he felt his elbow smack into someone's… he thought it was their face, and someone's knee into his back… _hard_.

They landed on the blimp with a cushioning 'Oomph' and soaked into it for a second before it spit them out again and they went sailing straight into the side of the building with an unpleasantly real smack. Phineas was vaguely aware of feeling the tile turn and feel himself falling and hitting another tile and another tile with a groan being squeezed out of him every subsequent tile and finally the feeling of shooting through the air and landing in a pile of fabric.

Next thing he knew he was being shaken by Ferb and pulled to his feet. He blinked several times to get readjusted to the light and looked around. Buford and Baljeet were lying tangled in a pile and both seemed to be asleep while Isabella had landed spread-eagled on the pile of parachutes and then had curled herself into the fetal position; she was asleep too. "Ferb, how long have we been here?" Phineas asked his step-brother, standing a few feet away.

Ferb held up ten fingers than flashed another ten. "Twenty minutes?" Phineas questioned. Ferb shook his head and Phineas paled slightly. "Not twenty hours…" Ferb shook his head again, getting more than a bit exasperated at his brother. It clicked. "Twenty _seconds_?" Phineas looked bewildered. Ferb nodded and moved around. Phineas followed and started to rouse Isabella while Ferb roused Buford and Baljeet.

"Isabella… Isabella…" Phineas gently shook her and felt her stir underneath him. "Isabella, come on."

"Oh Phineas" he heard her mumble in her sleep.

"Isabella," he smiled, "wake up…"

Isabella's eyes flew open astoundingly fast and she bolted upright, almost smacking into Phineas before he moved away in time. "Woah there… we should get moving."

Isabella looked a bit dazed and her face was flushed. She didn't look completely _there_. She shook her head and looked around. "Where are we?"

Phineas looked slightly surprised. "Uh… on the ground."

She turned her neck and looked, instead of at Phineas, to the tall, much extended, building behind him, specifically the point from which they had fallen. "Right, we fell… I kinda just remember screaming…" she giggled and Phineas felt a rush of relief that she hadn't suffered an injury. "How long have we been here?"

Phineas looked at his watch, silver-rimmed and highly polished, "According to Ferb? About a minute. I think we should get going. There's no way someone didn't see that."

As Phineas reached down to help up Isabella he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked over, for an jiffy with confusion, and found Ferb standing there, Buford and Baljeet close next to him. He leaned in close and Phineas pricked his ears for what he had to say. "Don't be alarmed, but I've been surveying the area since we got here and I think more than I few cameras have seen us. And I don't know if you noticed, but the portal disappeared."

Ferb retreated and let it sink it for a moment. A look of intense thoughtfulness swept across Phineas' face as briefly as a passing cloud before he snapped his fingers. "Okay… here's what we're gonna do. Ferb's told me, and I'd have thought it even without his watchful eye, that we've been recorded by some security cameras. Not to alarm you, but the portal's also closed."

Buford's complexion turned disbelieving. "So how are we supposed to get back?"

Phineas grinned plaintively, "Well, I'd say we first have to erase those tapes."

"But **how** are we going to _get back_?" Baljeet spoke up.

"Relax guys, I think I have an idea. Younger Ferb and I must have come up with some way of getting us back to our own universe so I figure that, if we find them, we'll be able to see what they did or, if worse comes to worse, use their method."

"Wouldn't that severely disrupt the time stream?" Baljeet asked.

"That would only be if we accept the Malleable Cause-Effect model. Which has been proved to be true both times we meddled in time."

"Um… Phineas, sorry to burst your bubble but… isn't _this _one of the times?" Isabella queried rhetorically.

"That would mean that that model is no longer certain."

"Guys! Stop! We've got to look at this from a logical perspective. Nobody knows we're here - this time or place - and the first priority has always been stealth. If someone knows could have disastrous consequences. So we first have to erase those tapes and then, if we do have to use younger us's invention we'll have to make sure they don't notice somehow."

"In the continued interest of stealth, I suggest we move." Everyone looked at Ferb but didn't question him.

"Okay guys, we'll hide in that alley over there" Phineas pointed with lanky outstretched arm to the dark, yet spotlessly clean alley just in the back of the building next to the New Multiverse twin of Doofensmirtz Evil Incorporated, "and work out a plan for getting inside. Now, move quick!" Phineas began moving quickly towards the alley, though he was quickly overtaken by Ferb.

Each scooted into the alley with a slide they couldn't resist and hid in the shadows. First came Ferb, followed by Isabella and then Buford and Baljeet, each sabotaging the other in an effort to get there first. Phineas, however, had stopped and was not in the alley, but looking across the street to something they couldn't see from their hidden positions. Isabella took an anxious gasp and hissed, "Phineas! Get back here! You going to get caught!"

Phineas didn't seem to hear her or at least pretended to extremely convincingly, instead he mumbled something incoherent and continued staring at… whatever he was staring at. Isabella craned her neck and stood up slightly from her hiding position. "What…?" she whispered, then shook her head. It didn't matter, whatever it was. Phineas had to get there before something bad happened, which she was sure it would. "Never mind, Phineas! Get back here!" she gestured wildly at his side.

"Perry…!" Phineas raised his hand and pointed, evidentially at what he had been staring at and Isabella, curiosity getting the better of her, stood up from her hiding place and walked over to Phineas, Baljeet making a feeble effort to stop her. Besides, she would be able to bring back Phineas as well as satisfy her curiosity. As she came to stand next to him and grab his arm, he pointed once more. Unable to resist, Isabella took a glance. Her jaw dropped, was that _Perry_? Come again, Perry in a _hat_?

"May I please see your papers?" a thoroughly cheerful voice rang out from the alley behind them. Phineas, Isabella still clinging wildly to his arm, spun around faster than the supersonic spinning tops he had made for fun just the other day and stared into the face, or… piece, of an exact duplicate of the robot he had seen in the building. Phineas gulped, _hard_ and moved his hand to hold onto Isabella's arm as well. He just had too darn _much_ going on to handle things cooly.

Swiftly, after just a few seconds, several parts on the robot swiveled to look infinitely more menacing and the voice changed altogether; this time, a completely threatening, completely scary voice. "Show me you're papers or be destroyed."

From his position, now completely unsheathed, in the alley behind the robot, all Buford could say as his heart pounded was "Nah, we're good."

* * *

><p><strong>AN - And, may I present to you... chapter 4! Now, this is where things start to get serious.**

**The story's gonna take a pretty drastic turn in the next few chapters and I hope it will outweigh some of its mentioned predictability.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing this one. I'm afraid I don't have much to comment on on this one, 'cause, at the time of writing, my thoughts are a little cluttered.**

**Enjoy!**

**PS, for _Isabella012_, though you are anonymous, I think you should wait for the story and see. ;)**


	5. Long Time, No See

**Chapter 5: Long Time, No See**

Isabella felt Phineas tug on her arm. She glanced at him quizzically, then back at the robot hovering threateningly before them. Time seemed to have slowed to a solar orbit's pace; just trickling slowly, yet surely, on and on. Out of the corner of her eye, she could just see Phineas slowly moving in the direction of the trash-cans, but she kept her eyes wide and firmly fixed on the floating, fully-armed robot in front of her, threatening to turn her to steaming dust.

"Ferb, have a plan?" Phineas whispered in a low voice, also keeping his eyes on the robot, but trying to stay calm and doing very well at it. From her vantage point, Isabella couldn't see anything except the robot and Phineas, and definitely couldn't see Ferb's answer. All she could see was Phineas' face become a picture of… almost boredom. Not one of fear, but just the face of one who had been forced into something they would have rather avoided. "Oh…"

His face scrunched up thinking for the slightest amount of time. He opened his eyes again to look at the robot. "Okay, on my mark…" Isabella cocked her eyebrows quizzically. "Get ready to sprint to the trash cans."

"You have ten seconds to comply"

Isabella, had she not been so stiffly rooted to the spot, as a tree would be, would have had half a mind to point out to Phineas that it seemed like quite a dangerous plan and one that was none too smart. However, she _was_ rooted to the spot and so, as Phineas had instructed, had gotten ready to sprint to the trashcans. The robot still hovered, in quite a rooting way, in front of them, though it now had its arms lowered with glowing red strips of light running across their length.

Phineas tensed his muscles, preparing to run to where Ferb and Baljeet, but not Buford, were slightly pusillanimously hovering behind the gleaming brushed steel of the trashcans in the alley. Isabella could almost _feel_ those ten seconds tick by agonizingly as she prepared to run with Phineas. And before she knew it, her legs were moving fast and furiously over the light purple pavement independently of her brain as her hand grasped Phineas'.

The shocked expressions of Baljeet and Buford as well as the screeched words "Your plan was _run_?" just barely leaked through from Phineas' ears to his well over-stimulated brain. From behind him came a hissing, bubbling sounds as the robot fired up its laser cannons and began shooting at them - the searing white-hot bolts of energy, burning and sizzling the air as they sped through it faster than the human mind could comprehend, leaving acrid angry choking black smoke like a swarm of stinging bees behind it, just barely missing their ducking and weaving forms.

Soon it wasn't just one robot flying behind them and blasting up the pavement and alley into a whirling biting tempest in front of them with flashing, palpitating red beams dancing in front of them like crazed epileptics; it was a menacing cluster of four or five. They weaved their way tenaciously yet cautiously through the dimly lit alleys with the robots close behind them, never losing track. Phineas was stunned at how they managed to keep up. He liked to think he was a fairly fit teenager yet the speed he was running at now, with molten undulating lead flowing, scorching, through his veins and crawling like angry insects, clicking and hissing, nipping with sharp teeth at his nerves, up his legs, was greater than any he had ever attained, and with good reason.

The back alleys they were running through, Ferb at the front just slightly ahead of Phineas with Isabella third followed by Buford and Baljeet, were a twisting, squirting maze vomiting up a concrete wall here and a barbed fence there. Ferb could just discern a layout for the alley mapping and unfolding itself in his mind as he raced through it, sickening aware of how his feet burned on the bubbling boiling pavement as his shoes slapped against it faster than his heartbeat. _Smack, smack, smack, smack_. They echoed in his mind, bouncing off the walls of a great cavern but only returning to hit and split his face open as he turned and thought them gone.

_How could Phineas stop and give us away because he was hallucinating about Perry?_ Ferb thought annoyedly in his mind. Something was off about Phineas. Maybe he was just getting re-used to the temperature of life at a faster pace - trying on a coat he had worn well when he was younger. But as much as Ferb wanted to believe that this was it, he too couldn't shake the perpetual feeling of deja vu. Perry _hadn't_ been… back then, right? And this was all new.

He was so engrossed in running for his life and his thoughts that he didn't even notice they were out of the alley system and on the open road and that they were now in full view of many more security cameras as well as a fair few houses. Glancing quickly behind him, Ferb noticed that the others must have taken a different way to him and that the robots were now solely following him. He almost tripped and did a double-take, but kept running.

_Now_ he realized he was out of the alley system; three of the robots had taken a different route and wheeled off in front of him, blocking his escape. He did a full about-face looking for another way out. There wasn't. He was trapped, an animal in a cage about to die and his eyes widened. But he didn't panic. He didn't even flinch. His mind went into overdrive, thinking of every possibility that could get him out of this. This wasn't a time to panic. _There!_ Behind one of the robots on his right, another alley. If he could just get the right distraction…

And very quickly, he got one as several things happened at once. There was a crash in the alley behind him and he turned, purely on infuriating instinct, losing his focus, to see what it was. Mere microseconds after there were five simultaneous, ear-shredding cracks, tearing ruthlessly the air asunder and Ferb felt something extremely hot pass extremely close above his head. Ferb wasn't able to turn his head fast enough as there were five simultaneous explosions exactly where each of the robots were as well as the gasps from the now-found Phineas, Isabella, Baljeet and Buford.

"Wow Ferb! Nice shot!" Confusion swept through Ferb's mind in great, thick puffy clouds at this statement until he looked around to see the smoking remnants of the robots - jagged blackened teeth sticking up feebly and brokenly like smashed bones, as if the metal had just been torn in half like paper. Various conclusions rushed into his mind flood-like, washing out the confusion, and he tried to piece together what had happened. Who had destroyed the robots? Where were the reinforcements and, most importantly, _where was everyone? _Someone had to have seen it.

He raised a steady finger, "Well, actually I—"

"Awesome destroying those robots Ferb!" Phineas clapped him on the shoulder, "How did you do it?" Though he didn't seem to stop to listen to the answer. He didn't seem to be at all surprised or concerned about what had happened, Ferb noted.

"Well—" He started again, trying to heave the train forward again before he was interrupted.

"This is bad. Who knows how many cameras have seen us now! I think we need to start getting back - we still don't know how to get home." Interrupted again. Buford moved his fist to punch Baljeet, getting annoyed, but withheld it and instead flicked him, which the nerd seemed to ignore. Everyone had hushed themselves and they looked about, most trying to catch their thoughts.

The road they now stood in was almost identical to every other they had passed. The alley that led out into it was now freshly redecorated with a stippling of blackened burned smoking holes and cracked craters, making it quite a unique sight to lay eyes on compared to all the other alleys in the city. The street was a normal one, with an untarnished silken ribbon of midnight tar-sealed road passing through the center and completely undifferentiated houses erected of lavender concrete and frowning green windows with a menacing twinkle in their eyes. The only thing that could distinguish this street with the numerous synonymous ones that squatted corpulently next to it was the numbering on the houses and the name on the street sign limply hanging, as a half-dead sloth, onto its pole. Unlike the typical names that Ferb had noticed, generally _Doofensmirtz Street _or _Heinz Crescent_, this one was embellished with the name _Maple Drive_. The one thing that no one had noticed however, radically differentiating this street from the rest, was the tall slender figure clad in dark colors leaning up against the one tree they had seen and unconcernedly twiddling a yo-yo while watching the whole scene play out in front of them as 'twas their personal play.

Ferb was the first to notice the barely animated shadow, as he scanned the street for cameras and robots. Quietly, he tapped Phineas on the shoulder and deftly nodded his head towards the tree at the end of the street. Phineas, not as subtly as Ferb, squinted his eyes and peered at the shadow. Noticing the focus of the two brothers, Isabella, Baljeet and Buford all turned to look too. And that was when the shadow ran.

With a yelp and a slight jump, Phineas ground his rubber soled converses into the rough black surface of the road and ran after the patch of midnight with a yell. Ferb chased him up quickly too, as he was most curious as to who this stranger was and why they had simply stood by and watched their group. Certainly, he thought, it couldn't be normal in this place to simply watch complete strangers and make no attempt to communicate or help. Then again… he looked at his disheveled and shagging surroundings; maybe it wasn't so uncommon…

For the third time that day, if you could call it that, Ferb rushed passed the corner of _Madison Avenue_ and _Maple Drive_, though, once again, completely separate from the other two. Almost back to where they had started, albeit in an entirely different universe and time period, the figure darted quickly down a dark, little used alley two houses down from the Flynn-Fletcher household and one the boys in their long-passed youth had oft explored. Assuming it was the same as the one they had left, unless this person knew these streets better than they did (which was not in the remotest sense unlikely), Phineas and Ferb had them trapped, whoever they were.

Fortunately for them, they were not burdened with ill-luck, as the alley was the same and the person did not seem to know this. The alley was in fact blocked and had only one entrance, which the boys had now eliminated as an option. Swiftly, yet cautiously, Ferb approached the black clad (which he now saw to instead be a dirty-grey) silhouette standing, back firmly pressed, against the graffitied metal wall that barred the way.

Much to his surprise, he didn't need to continue forward as, instead, the figure came to him, first clapping twice, slowly and not as if to congratulate, more the sort of clap that a rich-man makes when he desires his food to be taken away by his servants after he has finished. Stepping out of the middle afternoon light, though it didn't make a lot of difference in that place, the girl, for that was what she was now revealed to be, lowered her hood to let some clumped locks of green hair fall in front of her face to hover with the pull-strings of the hoody.

The girl had deep brown-blue eyes (the same color as Ferb's); a small, yet unmissably blocky, nose and sported a messy sprouting cut to her shockingly green hair. She was tall and quite obviously a fair few years older than Ferb or Phineas but yet only just stood to the height of his eyebrows. But the most shocking thing about her wasn't her eyes or her hair, it was her smile - the same seductively cocky smirk that Ferb gave people when he messed with them.

"Hiya, Ferb! Long time no see!" Ferb had the biggest surprise he had ever experienced. The girl stuck out her hand. "Emily… and I don't need to ask who you are."

With the greatest mixture of reluctance and surprise, the side of Ferb long trained in the ancient ways of British courtship and gentlemanly manners took the outstretched hand and shook it firmly, but without even reaching his brain. The girl didn't seem to concerned at Ferb's stiffness and only briefly glanced at him before turning to look at the redhead teen standing just a bit shocked behind him. "Hey Phineas!" she waved at him, earning her a somewhat exasperated stare in return.

"Uh… not to be rude, but… do I know you?"

Emily shook her head. "I wouldn't expect you to - unless you've been dabbling in quantum mechanics more than I thought."

Phineas scratched the back of his neck, for once at a loss for words to say, staring curiously at the ground almost as if trying to bore a hole in it. "So… um, how… well, uh…" he scratched his neck, trying to think of the right words to say. "Okay… so… if you, well, know _us_, how come we don't know _you_? I don't think I've ever seen you before."

Emily almost laughed. "That's easy" she said, half closing her eyes and grinning in the most peculiar way, almost smugly. "I'm Ferb's sister."

If Ferb had recovered from his initial shock (which he had, quite readily) he wasn't even sure how to react to hearing that. _Since when did he have a sister?_ "But Ferb doesn't have a sister! Well, apart from Candace. I should know, I live with him and Dad." Ferb nodded his head in agreement at Phineas' words.

Emily shook her head, grin still smeared like butter on her face. "Well, I'm here. And since you both see me we can rule out the possibility of you being crazy. I must be real. And I'm pretty sure that I'm his sister… seeing as we have the same dad and mum–"

"I didn't know my mum," Ferb said, speaking softly, eyes just the slightest bit downcast. "She died when I was young… I never saw her leave. I just came home one day and she wasn't there."

"Who are you talking to?" came a cry from the end of the alley.

"Here," Emily said, pulling out a picture from underneath her thin black coat and ignoring the call from the end of the alley. "That's Mum and Dad on their honeymoon, Dad gave me that when I was five."

Ferb took the picture, making sure to cover up the half where he saw green hair and a feminine form, shaking his head at Emily's questioning stare. In the picture, which seemed to have been taken after a tiring day, sat a much younger Lawrence, eyes half-drooped with a sloppy but oh-so happy grin smacked across his clean features as he sat on a couch with two arms wrapped around him as Ferb's mother slept against him. Ferb smiled briefly at the photo before handing it back just as Isabella came up to them.

"Uh… hello!" she waved a hand in front of his face, "I do exist, you know… and who is this?"

Emily stuck out her hand again. "Emily… I'm afraid that I don't know you."

Isabella raised a half-confused eyebrow as she took Emily's hand and shook it. "Isabella… and why would you know me?"

"Emily already knows us, apparently." Phineas shrugged at Isabella.

"How does she know you?"

"I dunno. She knew our names even with our disguises… speaking of, we should probably get out of here before one of the security cameras recognizes us and send more robots our way."

"Here, I know a place." Without even waiting for a reply she brushed past Phineas and Isabella and walked out the alley, Ferb right behind her, ignoring the questions shot at them by Buford and Baljeet, who had only just arrived there. Glancing at each other for the slightest second Phineas and Isabella took off to follow them with Buford and Baljeet right behind.

Ducking and weaving was Emily's form as she slipped in and out of the shadows as they became available. She was even better at sneaking than Ferb. "And this isn't my best" she said, winking at Ferb as he snuck along beside her, "I'm just making sure those guys can keep up." Ferb smiled briefly, he was really beginning to like this girl - he was even starting to think the odds of them being related less and less.

From what he had seen of the streets, though he had been running through the alleys, Phineas could sense they had been moving back in the direction they had come. Some of the streets they passed were familiar, although there were quite a few unwelcome features, and some were not. Where Phineas was sure was supposed to be a park he instead was looking at a great grey factory, futuristically designed, with semi-luminescent pipes running down the sides of the building like swollen unhealthy blood-vessels, bursting and swelling with thick metallic brown waste. Each window, where there was one, was like a horrifying portal into what happened inside, filled with gleaming cold white light and angrily staring down at them as they passed. Phineas shuddered. He was liking this place less and less. Where he thought was supposed to be a kindergarten and playground was now a towering building about four stories high with barred windows here and there and only one thickly studded door for an entrance; Phineas had the horrid suspicion that it was a torture and interrogation house.

He picked up his pace and began walking next to Ferb, with Isabella on Ferb's other side. Ferb, contrary to Phineas, was taking very little notice of the bleak and horrifying landscape around them and was instead engrossed with the remote for the time machine and a set of blueprints, only looking up occasionally to make sure he was still following the elusive-to-the-eyes Emily. As he glanced up again he found Phineas and Isabella next to him. He folded the blueprint and it promptly disappeared into his back pocket. "What are we doing?"

Phineas' brows scrunched in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what are our priorities?"

"Let's see… we've got to find your younger selves here, who can't be dead otherwise you wouldn't exist, and somehow get them to bring us back to our universe… we've got to find out what happened today to make us think it was an entirely different day… and we've got to make sure no one knows we were here…" Isabella counted off on her fingers, an absent look on her face as she followed Phineas and Ferb half-blindly.

"Yeah… we did a great job of that…" Phineas muttered, driving a somewhat expensive shoe-heal into the pavement and grinding it in frustration.

"Did a great job of what?" Isabella asked, almost ready to put a hand out to stop Phineas from breaking down, just in case. Hormones just made it worse…

"Staying out of sight… I totally blew it… I don't even think that was Perry…" Phineas rubbed the sleepers out of his eyes. Today was a lot more stressful than usual, and yet no more so than when he had been young. _Stupid puberty_…

"Phineas, it's okay… I know that if I'd seen Pinky here…"

"No… no, I'm fine. I can't change what happened."

"On a different note, have either of you thought about the implications of what's happened?" Ferb asked, unconsciously putting a hand to his chin as he turned his half-lidded gaze to his brother and friend.

"What do you mean?" Phineas and Isabella chimed.

Ferb paused. "I mean, I am now ninety-nine percent sure that this actually happened today… and" speaking before Phineas could, leaving him with mouth half-agape, "that we never, in fact, went forward twenty years to retrieve a wood and metal fusing tool." He looked at Phineas and Isabella promptly, as if spurring them on to say _Which means…_

"Which means nothing we learned there is certain any more… or if it's even possible. Candace might not have children… the future is uncertain…" Phineas' eyes moved skyward, though they didn't see, as his head drifted up higher than where he gazed.

"I might not marry Phineas…" Isabella muttered softly, feeling as if the energy that kept her going had suddenly disappeared. Her heart deflated and she no longer felt like the fearless girl that whizzed around the world on impossible adventures. She felt like a broken shell, cracked, stepped on and emptied of its contents. She felt helpless, like the girl on the island, clenching her knees as she watched the mocking beauty of nature yield to cold claiming darkness as her hopes dripped out onto the sand in the form of hot tears; crying to her best friend as he silently apologized for all his brother's shortcomings. She forced herself to breathe. She didn't need to cry. She was still the courageous girl she always had been. It didn't matter that her future wasn't guaranteed. Things weren't handed free of charge. They had to be taken.

"We're here!" The soft call of Emily's smooth articulate British lilt from the back entrance of one of the many downtown apartment buildings snapped Isabella out of her train of dark thoughts and Phineas out of his spacetime continuum ramblings. The building looked exactly like all the rest; it was tall, blocky, unbelievably smooth and lavender. As Emily led them inside, waiting just a tad impatiently for Baljeet and Buford to catch up, they could see that it appeared to be one of the nicer apartments of the area.

As the door shut and Phineas' eyes got adjusted to the light, or lack of, he walked over to the windows and front entrance of the building that seemed to be deserted, ignoring several warning hisses demanding he come back. Phineas was sure he had attended a baby-shower here once, though a few years ahead and in a multiverse counterpart, but that wasn't the part that had lured him to the window and that now intrigued him. They were right back where they had started… this was the building with the alley torn up behind it and… he sniffed, yes! He could smell freshly melted tar-seal. "You led us right back!" He felt a dab of giddiness for the first time that day.

"What?" Emily looked surprised. She walked over to him, black cargo pants swaying. "Where did you come from? You didn't come from the Doofensmirtz Evil Incorporated building, did you?" Phineas and everyone else nodded, though Emily didn't see them. "How did you escape?"

"What do you mean?"

"When people have been in DEI they don't usually come out." Emily's eyes darkened. "One of my friends, Stacy, she was taken one day… when she was about nine… I never saw her again." A tear dripped from her eye. "She's actually how I found out that you were here. She told me about her best friend Candace, and about her brothers… Phineas and Ferb."

"I'm sorry, but maybe she isn't dead! Maybe…"

Emily cut him off by putting a hand on his shoulder. She paused. "Phineas, I've heard the screams at night… you can feel your heart stop and your blood crawl back through your veins. Long, air-wrenching and then suddenly cut off. That's what put me to sleep for four years. That's why nobody lives here."

Phineas tried to speak but all he could choke out was "Gyhhk…" not even breaking the thick blanketing silence that had carpeted the room.

Nobody spoke as each tried not to imagine what Emily had described. Ferb, after a moment of reliving some of his darkest days in London, managed to block out the unwelcome thoughts and broke the silence first. "We're right here, and we need to erase the security footage of us…"

Emily didn't look happy at the statement, but before she could disagree the faint bang and crumbling noise of a metal antenna falling off the roof of the building interrupted her. They all turned to look out the windows just in time to see the pavement impaled with several satellite dishes. "Those are the Norm Bot controllers…" Emily muttered to herself.

"The what?"

"The Norm Bots… the robots that were chasing you… why on Earth…?"

Not waiting a second to ponder the question, Emily grabbed Ferb's hand and dragged him out the door leaving the others to follow. "Come on! Someone that's against Doofensmirtz has seized the building! This might be your only chance to erase those tapes!" Through a gaping hole in the building's wall, most likely made to get around the reinforced doors, Emily pulled Ferb, muttering all the way "The security room… the security room…". Up twenty stories in the elevator and down a further long corridor until they finally found themselves in a deserted room lit only with the impersonal blue light of almost a hundred different flat-panel TV monitors.

"We're here… the tapes should be on that drive in the corner there," she pointed to a large metal box with rectangular ports machined into the front, some empty, some filled with reinforced drives, "but you'll need to securely erase them. That will take about five minutes… which I'm not sure we have."

Without needing to be told and with the dual coordination that only Phineas and Ferb had, they slid into the metal seats at the end of the row, built for analyzing pre-recorded security tapes, and donned the headphones to start erasing. Quickly, they found the correct date and time stamp and began erasing footage one camera at a time, while Emily and Isabella clenched the back of their seats almost feverishly.

At the same time, Buford and Baljeet began walking over to look at the different live security feeds; "He has cameras everywhere" Baljeet breathed, "Downtown Danville, my house…?"; hovering but not really paying attention to a single one until Baljeet softly pointed out one screen dotted with familiar faces; "Buford… is that…?". Buford didn't answer but instead tapped Isabella on the shoulder and gestured to the screen. Wordlessly, Isabella moved over to look at it and caught her breath. Their they were. All of them, not just Phineas and Ferb. Candace, Isabella, Jeremy, Buford, Baljeet and all the Fireside Girls, lined up. In front stood a man Isabella could only vaguely recognize, she was sure she had seen him somewhere… and a boy she swore she knew the name of and… her breathing stopped, then started at a speed matched only by the shaking of her dog; _Perry_. Phineas hadn't been seeing things.

"Can we get sound?"

"Try the headphones," Baljeet gestured and Isabella did so. Immediately the voices of everyone in the room flooded her ears clear as crystal.

"Sir, are you crying?" the redheaded freckled boy spoke. _Carl_! As soon as she heard him speak his name flooded back into her mind.

Major Monogram shrugged it off indignantly. "No, I'm sweating through my eyes." _And that's his dad..._ Isabella thought.

"Okay sir, we're ready," she heard Phineas say after he and Ferb had hugged Perry. She furrowed her brow in confusion. _What are they doing…?_

"Okay Carl, we're set."

"Uh, Major Monogram…?" she heard her younger self speak for the first time. _Monogram? So Carl's name is Carl Monogram?_ The silly thought flitted through her mind, pulling her to the clouds so that she almost missed his reply.

"Uh, yes?"

"So none of us will remember any of today?" Isabella unconsciously moved closer to the glowing screen, unaware of the dark room around her while Buford and Baljeet tried to listen to the speech on the headphones. _That's why we don't remember today!_

"That's right."

"Good." And before Isabella could even register what her younger self was doing she witnessed the scene of her lips locked to his. A hand flew to her mouth, half out of shock, and half to make sure that she had lips, and that these were the same lips that she was now watching encompass Phineas'. Buford and Baljeet's eyes widened at them scene.

"Isabella…!" Phineas cried, sounding quite pleasantly surprised. But Isabella wasn't listening. The image of her nine-year-old self experiencing her first kiss with the boy of her dreams was burned into her eyes. She couldn't un-see it and the words "I _kissed_ him!" stuck like glue in her mind.

There was a flash on screen and the picture went white for a brief second. "It's done!" Phineas cried, standing up from the seat triumphantly and giving Ferb a subtle high-five. "Now let's get out of here! I don't want to be caught again." Ferb nodded and they moved toward the door.

"Wait! Phineas, look at this tape! It shows us, all of us, having our memories erased!" Baljeet stood up from his chair, hailing them back, already rewinding the feed.

"What?" Phineas asked.

"No time! We've got to go!" Emily urged, already listening for sounds outside.

"Quick! Be quick!"

Phineas hurriedly sat down at the desk and pulled on the headphones which Isabella had vacated, already standing quiet while she felt her spirit soar.

"_So none of us will remember any of today?"_

"_That's right."_

Just five seconds more. Just five seconds, that would be all it took. Emily's eyes widened. "No! You can't watch any more! We've got to go! I hear footsteps!"

_Just let him see it_ Isabella prayed. He was almost there. But so were the footsteps. "No time!" Emily pulled off the headset and yanked Phineas out of the chair toward the door that Ferb had opened just in time. "Go! Go!"

They scurried down the hallway, but they had not travelled more than a meter. "Hello…?"

Emily's heart leapt into her mouth. They were dead. It was throbbing at a million miles an hour, she could feel it. She couldn't swallow, she couldn't breathe.

"Baljeet?"

"Me again?"

Other Baljeet internally groaned. He thought he could be done for the day and possibly video call his relatives in India for the first time in years. But, apparently, the day wasn't over yet…

* * *

><p><strong>AN - Okay, sorry for the long wait… well, not the longest… but still.  
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**But, y'know, I've got lots to do. New school, sister's birthday parties… all fun. But hey-ho, that's the way we go, we go.  
><strong>

**Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter. I'll try to update more frequently but I've got a ton of school work and I've got less of an idea about where it's going from this point. I've got some plot points to fill still…  
><strong>

**I thought it was rushed during the end bit there but it may not be.**

**Midnight4568 (Chapters 1 & 2): Sorry for not responding sooner. Anyway, thank you. :) I'm glad you like it, it's nice to know you like the work. I'm sorry to say, but no, unlike my other stories this one's not going to have a Doof/Perry plot. But my next story (not the sequel for this one) should have one, as it's more light-hearted. And yes, I'd love to hear Phineas speaking in a British accent too… I'm sure he could… .**

**chibi-chan 2013: I'm really glad you liked it! And super glad that you're dying in anticipation… :D Well, not the dying part… :P Hope you like these new chapters!**

**Alycia31: Thanks again for the review! I like my writing style too. ;) But, kidding aside, I'm so, so happy that you think my writing accompanies this story well. I don't think it would work if it didn't. :D**

**CP3A: Sorry you don't have an account… :P But maybe you do! Anyhoo, I'd love to see some of your writing up on here! Hope your vague ideas don't ruin the story too much… but if you do guess right you deserve an award. Don't tell anyone else though… ;) I'd love to see that gecko too.**

**isabella012: Thanks for the review. Hope your phone gets to working again… I know I can get ticked off with mine when it gets slow… but that's usually the Wi-Fi's fault. Derp. :P Great to know you're a Phinbella fan! And we'll see where the story goes… :D Hope it doesn't disappoint you too much…**

**anon: Thank you. :D**

**Tink555: Thank you, thank you, thank you! I hope you enjoy the new chapters that come along! They seem to get longer and longer every time… derp. . Glad you like the plot! It's one of my more complicated ones… at least, to create. :D Enjoy the new chapters and I hope they aren't too predictable.**

**And finally… WordNerb93!: (I'm so ecstatic that you review so much! Hope you don't mind that this response is only for chapters 4 & 5 though). Thank you… I like keeping people hanging. :) And yes, yes they are. In fact, they already have meddled with time just by going back. Ooops (On their part). Actually, in this story, I'm portraying a different style of time-travel to the one usually used in the show (the kind where you can freely go back in time and change anything). Ever read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? That's the style of time-travel I'm using. Unfortunately, yes, real life always does come first… I need a fair amount of escapism just to deal with it! :D And yes… it's actually very good that they ran into Alt. Baljeet. And, unfortunately, since they missed most of the proceedings, they don't know that they willingly had their memories erased! For all they know, they could have been brainwashed or tricked into doing it! It actually stirs up some problems later on…**

**Now, first time I'm asking this, but... PLEASE comment and review, I'd like to know your thoughts about how it's gone so far. Thnx in advanced.**


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